The present invention relates to a method of adhesively securing members together using an aqueous activated adhesive system as described below. The method has particular applicability to the adhesive joining of members that are slidingly assembled with an adhesive layer between the members.
Herein, an aqueous or water activated adhesive system includes an adhesive layer that is wetted with water or a substantially aqueous solution along a surface thereof to facilitate the use of the adhesive in the particular application. Similarly, a solvent activated adhesive system includes an adhesive layer that is wetted with an organic solvent along a surface thereof to facilitate its use. Organic solvents comprise carbon containing compounds such as hydrocarbons.
It is often desirable to adhesively join members that are assembled in surrounding relationship, e.g., one of the members receives at least a portion of the other member in a female and male type assembly, with overlying surfaces of the members having an adhesive joint or layer therebetween. An example of such an assembly is the mounting of a gripping member to another member as in the case of a hand grip to be mounted to a hand manipulated device or article such as a golf club, a tennis racket, a hand tool such as a garden tool or a screw driver etc.
In such assemblies, the surrounding or overlying surfaces may substantially restrict the transmission of fluids, i.e., vapors or liquids, from the adhesive joint or layer so as to prevent or impede the set-up of the adhesive. Solvent activated adhesives have been favored in such applications heretofore since typically a solvent may be more readily transmitted from the adhesive layer in vapor and/or liquid form as compared with an aqueous constituent such as water.
Aqueous activated pressure-sensitive adhesives have not been successfully used in such applications since the adhesives have not set-up within a reasonable time period, e.g. 24 hours. Solvent application has been necessary to achieve reasonable set-up times. For convenience, the invention is particularly described hereinafter with respect to the mounting of a grip to a golf club shaft. Such an application requires a sufficiently high adhesive shear strength to resist the torque loads applied to the grip during use of the club.
It is known to mount a golf club grip to a club shaft using a solvent activated adhesive system in the form of a double sided or coated tape. One surface of the tape is applied to the club shaft and the exposed adhesive surface is wetted with an industrial solvent such as toluene to ease the mounting of the grip over the adhesive. Excess solvent is subsequently dried by evaporation.
It is desirable to avoid the use of such solvent activated adhesive systems in favor of more environmentally friendly aqueous activated adhesive systems which are also safer to use in the manufacturing process. Further, it is generally not desirable to use an adhesive system having different adhesive layers for the shaft and grip since such requires orientation and may require separate activation treatments.